Handsome Train – ”Pop EP”

Shortly after releasing the ”Hit music only” compilation CD, we saw Handsome Train (one of the bands on there) perform live here in Halmstad for the first time, and we were totally blown away. We just couldn’t understand that such a good band could come from this town (which is otherwise mostly known for Per Gessle and Roxette when it comes to music)… Among the songs they played during that gig were ”Pop” and ”Riot girls”, two songs that made us suggest a 7″ EP to be released on Heavenly Pop Hits later that same year. They happily agreed, and went to a studio just outside Falkenberg (a studio owned by one of the quite horrible comedians Stefan & Krister) to record five new songs for the single.
In November we planned a release party at the venue Rockstugan in Halmstad, but since the records were a little delayed from the Czech Republic, we sadly couldn’t sell the EP that night, but they played anyway, and it was as good as ever! A week later the plastic pieces arrived, in 300 copies. With all the orders we included a badge with the same design as the sleeve, but in black and white instead of yellow and black.
As we had decided to make the single as cheap as possible, we didn’t make the label design with the Czechs. Instead we bought a rubber stamp and started to stamp every label with the name of the band and the single, plus the song titles for each side. Looking back, this wasn’t a brilliant idea, but we did repeat it later when we released the Hormones In Abundance EP. Don’t ask me why…
Handsome Train later went on to record a lot of fantastic songs, some of them released on the CDR ”This engine will do” on the Popkonst label. But there are a lot of songs that just needs to be released, so if maybe Snow Day Records will release a retrospective sometime…